MY NAME’5 DODDIE

By Lucy Aitken and Vikki Williams

This was the inaugural event raising money for My Name'5 Doddie Foundation. Doddie Weir (OBE) was a Scottish Rugby Union player who died in 2022 aged 52. Diagnosed in 2016 he established this foundation in 2017 and campaigned to raise awareness and fund research on finding effective treatments and a cure for MND. MND is a rapidly progressing terminal illness which stops signals from the brain reaching the muscles and will cause someone to lose the ability to move, talk,swallow and breath unaided. The event on Sunday raised over £1000 for the charity. At the start of the event Mark Beaumont and Scott Hastings spoke about Doddie and his legacy, and of the impact of MND before releasing us with our Doddie tartan headbands on to run.

There was a 950m kids race and then the 5K and 10K race started together. They started from Gypsy Brae and was pretty much the parkrun loop from the other end of the prom, with one lap for the 5K and two for the 10K. It was a fairly breezy morning and you really felt the headwind, particularly when heading out on the second lap, but didn't feel it's benefit on the return! The real benefit of having two loops was being able to see your fellow WERCers several times and cheer them on, or just wave a bit if you were on the struggle bus. 

There were a few PBs amongst us and Alan won the race - congratulations Alan!! We also had a wee chat with Scott Hastings and attempted to recruit him to the club. Time will tell whether that was successful. There was a wee coffee van at the end so we had coffee to accompany our cake and chat after which was lovely.

Overall this was a really fun and well-organised race, and it was lovely to raise money and awareness of such an important cause. It was really fun to take part in with pals and could bne a good contender for a club champs race in the future.